Elise M. Prébin

Meeting Once More

Elise M. Prébin

A greatmobilization began in South Korea in the 1990s: adult transnational adopteesbegan to return to their birth country and meet for the first time with theirbirth parents—sometimes in televised encounters which garnered high ratings. What makes the case of South Korea remarkable is the sheerscale of the activity that has taken place around the adult adoptees' return,and by extension the national significance that has been accorded to thesefamily meetings. Informed by theauthor’s own experience as an adoptee and two years of ethnographic research inSeoul, as well as an analysis of the popular television program «I Want toSee This Person Again,» which reunites families, Meeting Once Moresheds light on an understudied aspect of transnational adoption: the impact ofadoptees on their birth country, and especially on their birth families. Thevolume offers a complex and fascinating contribution to the study of newkinship models, migration, and the anthropology of media, as well as to thestudy of South Korea.